Grant: Project Grant

Lung cancer is the first cause of cancer-related death in males and females. Smoking is the main environmental factor associated with lung cancer, but only one smoker out of nine develops the disease. In addition, 15 to 25% of lung cancer cases occur in never-smokers. A genetic susceptibility is thus convincing. Recent studies conducted by large international research groups have achieved an important step to understand the genetic component of lung cancer. Although encouraging, these new discoveries do not directly lead to better management and treatment of afflicted patients. To do so, additional steps are required to identify the molecular and cellular mechanisms causing lung cancer. The goal of this research project is to find genetic and cellular factors implicated in the development of lung cancer. More specifically, we will focus on adenocarcinoma, which is the most common type of cancer found in the lung. To achieve our goal, we will generate two datasets. First, we will take advantage of our biobank and modern genomic approaches to interrogate normal lung and tumor tissues (from the same patient) for more than 500 patients. Second, we will harness a new genomic technology called "single-cell RNA-sequencing" to reveal the cellular origin of lung cancer genes. We will study living cells from tumors and non-tumor lung samples obtained from lung cancer surgery at our Institution to understand the cellular makeup of the lung transitioning from normal to cancer. We will also highlight common and distinct cellular and molecular processes playing a role in disease development in males and females, as well as in never- and ever-smokers. Finally, we will pinpoint the specific cell types that express lung cancer genes identified in previous genomic studies. The identification of lung cancer genes is currently an essential step to improve prognostic following surgery, develop early detection tests, custom-tailor future medical treatments, and find new drug targets.